


your love is my immortal crown

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Ben is Persephone, F/M, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), No Pregnancy, Rey Palpatine, Rey is Hades, Reylo Charity Anthology, Role Reversal, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: A young woman makes a choice and ascends her grandfather’s throne, becoming a goddess and a queen to save her lover, the god of spring, who will stop at nothing to return to her.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 24
Kudos: 123
Collections: RHG: Medusa Issue #01, Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2, Reylo Hidden Gems





	your love is my immortal crown

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2020 Reylo Charity Anthology, Across the Stars.  
> Title taken from [“persephone”](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3313254/persephone/) by Rachel Kirkpatrick.

The dark became her.

Or, did she become the dark?

The Queen of the Underworld guarded the night warily, watching souls passing by as softly as the stars floating above her. 

Her realm was dark and cold, filled with the spirits and ghosts of ancestors past, but she preferred it that way. It was peaceful in its own way, calming for those recently arrived from the lands of the living. It helped to soothe them as it did her. The dark was patient and kind, just as she was. 

She could not bear to look upon the sun or have it illuminate the darkness that enveloped her realm. Its warmth, its rays of light, were not meant for her any longer. Nature’s small blessings belonged to others, not to her. 

She had sacrificed the sun, greenery, the light’s warmth for the moon, shadows, and the dark’s cold embrace. But if she had to make her decision once more, she would do it all the same. Her sacrifice was not in vain.

* * *

The seeds sat on the table before her.

Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

 _Eat_ , the voices whispered. _Eat the seeds, take your grandfather’s throne, ascend as is your divine right, your bloodline’s birthright._

Her lover disappeared, wounded and thrown out of the Underworld by her grandfather’s hands, a consequence of his dark power. She did not dare reach out for him, whisper his name, give any inclination that she knew him to be as alive as herself. 

She forced herself to take a step forward. One step, then another. 

The seeds stretched out on the table before her, glistening in the starlight, their juices dripping like blood. 

The voices chanted behind her. The light flickered. Her grandfather’s realm was eerie, shrouded in menacing darkness just as was he. 

Rey, granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, the Lord of the Underworld, took up a pomegranate seed and placed it on her tongue. She bit down, savoring its sweetness and juices. 

Her grandfather cackled. The chanting of the robed figures behind her intensified. 

She ate, and tasted sweetness mixed with a metallic tang. 

Then, after finishing the pomegranate, she took up her sword and sliced through her grandfather’s body. 

The five rivers roared their acceptance of their new goddess, splashing water and churning. 

The hooded figures knelt before her, their new mistress, Empress Rey, Lady of the Underworld. 

She ascended the throne, stepping in her grandfather’s blood. 

And so it was, and so it shall be, that a young orphaned warrior woman became the goddess of the dead, sacrificing herself as she killed her grandfather to save her lover. 

Outside the realm of the Underworld, the young god of spring and nature climbed and clawed his way forward, trying in vain to reach the woman he loved before it was too late. 

The River Styx would not let him pass, roaring waves crashing onto its banks as if it were the ocean. It would not share its mistress.

It was then that Ben Solo fell to his knees and wept. He wept for his lost love, for what she had done, for the curse that seemed to follow his family bloodline. 

He wept for the deaths he had caused and the knowledge that she would then judge those same deaths and be reminded of him. 

He would wander all the realms, searching for a way to bring her back from the darkness. 

And so it was, and so it shall be. 

The days passed by, the fates were woven, and Ben Solo would descend to the Underworld again.

* * *

“It is spring, my lady,” a recently deceased farmer explained when he was presented to her, newly arrived in her halls. “The river near my village flooded with melted snow. I rushed into the water to save the children and animals.” 

“Welcome to Hades,” she stated, nodding at him. “Your hard work and selflessness will be an asset here.” Looking to one of her handmaidens, she gestured her over. “See to it that this farmer has a fine plot of land on which to grow crops in Elysium. Make certain there is enough space for his family to join him when it is their time.” 

“Yes, my lady,” Mercè replied, escorting the farmer out and onward. 

And so Rey passed her days, welcoming the newly dead to the Underworld and seeing to it that they spent their afterlives according to how they had lived their lives above. The hardworking and the righteous were rewarded; the evil-doers were cast into the darkest pit to atone for the suffering they caused. There was no concept of time’s passage in Hades; there were hours for sleeping and resting, for eating and working, but they did not necessarily correspond to those above, nor was anyone required to be on a particular schedule. Rey had only known it to be spring in the world above due to the farmer’s words. 

Her heart twinged at the remembrance of her lover’s season, but Rey found peace in her work, despite its bloody beginning. She loved to gaze up at the stars at night, and let her dark cloak slip down her head, when no one else could see her. Each star corresponded to a soul in her realms, she decided. 

She would never see her lover’s soul again; it was truly the only price she had to pay for her choice to save him. He was immortal and would not come before her and her panel for judgment. He would roam the earth, walking through new spring grasses and casting seeds to be harvested by his mother, and while she longed for him, she hoped he found a measure of happiness in his immortal life while generations of humanity lived and died measuring the grains of their harvests and minutes of their lives. 

The lives of mortals were so fleeting; they could laugh, and love, and be hurt, and get over it quickly, for life was precious and short. 

But Rey had an eternity to spend alone, to face the monotony of each everlasting day and a never ending ache in her heart.

But so it was, and so shall it be.

Rey was resigned to her solitary life until a boat crashed on the Styx’s shores, where boats were never meant to cross; only souls could and would cross its rocky banks. 

The black boat bore a beautiful young man, who was not truly a man at all, but a god, a prodigal son, one who had faced darkness and would return to face it again. He created the craft to bear him across the torrent, where he did not belong, a light in the darkness. He would not give up, would not surrender the woman he loved, even if it caused his own death. 

Palpatine was gone, his reign ended, his terrors and cruel shades that made the Underworld a place mortals feared were no more, but still Ben Solo returned to fight for his soulmate, his goddess, his equal in all things.

They faced evil together, and now they would face eternity together, never alone. 

She ran to him, altogether undignified for the Lady of the Dead. 

They held each other briefly, smiling not just with their lips, but with their eyes, hearts, and souls, before he collapsed in her arms. His body was broken and bloodied; his lips were cold when she kissed them. She pressed her hand to his waist, filling him with life and love—her life and love. 

She held a pomegranate to his lips, begging him to taste its sweetness, to recover the strength he lost in returning to her. 

He managed to eat just six seeds, but Rey considered it a victory as she held him while he returned to life. 

* * *

The earth froze and hardened after the harvest; fields fell fallow, and the Underworld filled with the souls of those too young and weak to survive harsh winter. 

“You cannot stay,” raged the other gods, caught up in their petty squabbles and bickering like humanity’s worst. 

“There, you do not belong, son of Skywalker,” wise Master Yoda said. 

“We need Spring, to bring forth new life. This long winter is unnatural; we did not create humanity to suffer so without a season of renewal and rebirth,” echoed Master Kenobi.

Rey could not return to the land above, the land of the living, but Ben could. 

She would not sacrifice her love, and he would not needlessly sacrifice his life or others. A compromise was made--he would stay with her for half the year, six months for the six seeds he had eaten from her palm, from her heart. 

Six months he would spend upon the Earth, restoring life to those who needed it most.

The Earth wept each time Ben Solo descended below, but those in the Underworld rejoiced, for their favored son, their blessed Emperor had returned. 

It was said that he only smiled in the Underworld, in the presence of his soulmate. 

His mother, Leia Organa, goddess of the harvest, wept with the Earth for her prodigal son. But she knew his heart belonged to Rey, who walked among the dead, and that the Earth needed to recover while he descended below, resting until the fields bloomed once more with Spring’s arrival; while hope had yet a ray of green, Ben Solo would return from his lover’s embrace and walk his mother’s lands.

And so it was, and so it shall be.

* * *

And in the time in between, Death kissed Spring, their pain and sorrows forgotten. 

They kissed, their bodies entwining underneath the stars. 

His hair and lips were as soft as the moonlight; her hazel eyes grew dark with desire, shining in the twilight realm. 

Her lithe body arched under him, pressed to his broad chest while they breathed heavily and gasped each other’s names. 

Her lips tasted of pomegranates, but nothing tasted sweeter to Ben than her innermost self, the lips at the apex of her thighs--and nothing sounded sweeter than her moans when he tasted her, giving his goddess the love she deserved. 

They kissed, and touched, and savored, whispering, “You’re not alone.”

“Neither are you.”

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to the Reylo Charity Anthology mods and to my dear beta boo Desiree. Please leave a comment with your thoughts, and come chat with me on Tumblr!


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